Antunović - Wines from Kutjevo and Lika

From Kutjevo, from the Golden Valley, at the workshop "Time is FOR...", a young winemaker, Tomislav Antunović, came to Zagreb. His father, Jure Antunović, bought a vineyard in Hrnjevac in 2001. The Antunovićs (father, mother Željka, and brother Nikola) and Tomislav have 85,000 vines on 18 hectares and are also engaged in fruit growing (walnuts, hazelnuts, plums, chestnuts). In 2014, Tomislav founded his AT Agrofort winery as part of the OPG. In 2017, he decided to make wines biodynamically according to the phases of the moon. This means that all important tasks in the treatment of grapes, from harvesting to cellar operations: maceration, racking, and bottling, are carried out during the full moon. Hence the name Luna for his Graševina.

He demonstrated his invention by planting the first vines in the Lika region, on Debelo Brdo near Udbina. During 2021 and 2023. planted 2400 vines, eight varieties of which some are Piwi Solaris, Regent, Rondo, Cabernet Cortis, and of course, it could not pass without planting Graševina, the queen of Kutjevo. This year, the first serious amount of grapes grown in 2022 in the Kutjevo area will be harvested—1500 vines of Chardonnay and the same number of Sauvignon. So now the winery has 22,000 vines on 3.3 ha with predominantly Graševina. The cellar capacity is 33,000 liters and, in addition to selling the largest quantities on the doorstep, it manages to sell them in Dalmatia (Trogir, Split, Omiš) and several restaurants in Berlin.

At the presentation in Zagreb led by journalist Vjekoslav Madunić and at which sommelier Darko Lugarić spoke about the wines, the following were tasted: Solaris 2023. 12.0% alcohol. Luna Graševina 2024. 13.4, Luna Graševina 2021 12.5, Primo graševina 2020. 13.0, Traminac mirisni 2023. 13.2, Zweigelt 2023. 12.8 and Omega Pinot Noir 2023. 12.9.

Solaris 2023. 12% alcohol and 0.6 g. Residual sugar is a yellow-greenish wine with a herbal-floral character, with good acidity in the mouth, which gives it freshness. Solaris in Udbina is a piwi variety Fr 360 created by crossing Merzling, Muscat Ottonel, and Zarya severa. This very resistant variety has not been treated with spraying at all. Solaris is a typical aperitif wine and goes well with white sea fish, octopus carpaccio, and shellfish.

Luna graševina 2024. 13.4% alcohol and 5.1 g/L of acid is a wine with pronounced greenish tones that give freshness. The taste and aroma are fresh apples, mown meadows and white flowers. A typical young Graševina is full of sweetness, with minerality and delicious saltiness. The vineyards for this Graševina are located in the Dubok area at an altitude of about 250 meters. There are about 7,000 vines per hectare, and the yield is up to 1.5 kg per vine. Darko Lugarić gastronomically recommends the classic pasta with tomatoes and basil.

Primo Graševina 2020 with 13.0% alcohol and 14.5 grams of residual sugar. This is a late-harvest Graševina on the spot without any winemaker's intervention other than mixing. Malolactic fermentation was done on purpose. The winemaker's thinking is not to intervene in the wine but to let the fermentation take place spontaneously. The wine is golden yellow, the aroma is recognizable as apple, a little ripe apricot. The acids are gentler, and there's no lack of body extraction. There's a lot of residual sugar, 14.5 grams, but it's still semi-dry. The gastronomic sommelier recommended spare ribs with chili, chicken in panko crumbs in a sweet and spicy sauce, sushi, Argentine shrimp, and good fish.

The final wine in the workshop was Omega made from Pinot Noir, which in some years also comes as a blend. Omega 2023. 12.9% alcohol also followed the moon line in the harvest and processing. The wine is a typical Pinot, light red, ruby color, dense, intense varietal aroma. You can smell cherries, earth, and mushrooms. It is a well-balanced wine, with a good balance of acidity and marginal sugar, 3.4 grams. It was aged for 9 months in medium-burnt barrels of the second filling. Gastronomically, it would go well with dishes of roasted lamb, duck with millet, or pork loin with porcini sauce and homemade gnocchi.

Photos: Marko Čolić